


Carry On Without

by doodleishere



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Eventual Happy Ending, Insecure Simon, Kisses, M/M, Magic, Poetry magic, Possession, Simon Snow is an Idiot, Simon doesn't like himself and does a dumb thing, Simon has wings and then things HAPPEN, SnowBaz, bad ghost, baz has bad thoughts, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:01:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23982760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodleishere/pseuds/doodleishere
Summary: Did he know that I love him? Did he know that, in his last moments? (The thought that he didn't burns somewhere in my chest, right under my heart. But for some reason, I can't stop wondering.)As Simon Snow laid dying, did he think of me? Did he picture me and my face and smile that stupid toothy grin of his? (It's stupid. And toothy. And makes his face go all soft. I love it.) (Should I change that to past tense?) (Is that what Simon is now? Past tense?) Did he want to tell me he loved me? Did he think of that lifetime ago when he was kissing me on the floor of my family’s house, devouring me like a hungry wolf?I have to sit down....Simon Snow is gone. Penelope believes he's still alive, but all Baz wants to do is set himself on fire. Then it turns out that Penelope's right--sort of.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 15
Kudos: 61





	Carry On Without

**Author's Note:**

> did I just do another round of edits on 11/25/2020?? why yes. yes i did. will there be more? who knows, not me.

**BAZ**

There’s no carrying on after Simon Snow.

That’s not how it works with him. That’s _never_ how it’s worked with him, not since that day I first saw him.

Simon Snow explodes his way into your life, and then he just _is_. Your life is his, it’s overflowing with him, and there is no going back to how you were; there is no _carrying on_ like you were, because now you just _are_ , you’re something different than you were before. Simon Snow takes people and turns them into more.

And now he’s dead.

Bunce tells me that I’m being too extreme, but I don’t think that I am. She swears we’ll find him. That his wings in a box are just some kind of warning, that someone has him stowed away somewhere waiting for us to come rescue him. _“He’s waiting for us, Basil, and I’m willing to bet you my ring that he’s not waiting quietly or obediently. They’re wishing they could give him back right now. I just know it.”_ She thinks we’ll go save him, kind of like Christmas two years ago when we saved him from the Mage (although I guess that was more Simon saving himself than the rest of us).

But I can feel it. Simon Snow may not be a magic fucking vessel anymore, but that doesn’t mean his death was going to go unnoticed. I felt a tug two days ago, and then he didn’t answer his phone, and then his wings came shipped in the bloody mail.

Simon Snow is dead, and there’s no carrying on after him. There’s just a void.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Pitch,” Penelope says, scooping up our coats from the arm of the couch. I try to remember when I set mine there, but then I see the coloring and realize that it’s Simon’s. _Crowley. There’s no carrying on after Simon Snow_. Penny tosses his to me as she shrugs on her own, and the smell of him is more than too much to bare. “Just put on the damned coat and help me find him.”

“There _is_ no finding him,” I mutter, hands wrapped in the coat like I’m trying to wring it dry of every bit of Simon that’s left on it. _Was he cold? He didn’t even have his bloody coat on._

_Did he die freezing? He was supposed to die kissing me, he was supposed to die on fire. Instead, he died freezing._

“Yes, there fucking is,” comes the reply, and I’m so wrapped up in my head that Bunce has time to **Because I say so** me before I can fight it. It’s not that powerful of a spell; it can’t make you kill somebody or do something completely terrible. It also doesn’t work as a means of torture or betrayal or any of that; _those_ spells are hidden away in books that sit invisible on high shelves, and if Penelope had wanted to use one of those on me, she would have. This one’s mostly used on unruly children who don’t know that they can fight it.

If I resisted enough, the spell wouldn’t work. But I can’t bring myself to do that.

“Follow me to the car,” she says, and my body moves (mostly) without my direction. She looks at me once more, says, “And put on Simon’s bloody coat,” in this voice that I can’t quite read, and then turns and walks out the front door.

There is no carrying on after Simon Snow. His coat is on me, and _fuck_ , the smell of him is in every pore. I inhale and I never want to stop. Just inhale and inhale and inhale until my lungs are stuff full with Snow. No air; just Simon’s bloody scent.

This might be the last time I get to smell him.

Shit.

A part of me almost wants to go back inside and snatch up a wing just to hold something of his again. It’s not a hand, or a face, or his entire body, but it’s a slice of him. It's more Simon than I'm going to be getting for the rest of my life. It's a part of Simon still, isn't it?

I shudder, and I don't think it's from the cold.

No. A hacked off wing isn't really Simon anymore. It's a _used-to-be_ part of him. A piece no longer connected. A bit of Simon without the best piece. Merlin and Morgana, nevermind.

Simon _fucking_ Snow has ruined me. He ruined me at Watford while he was alive, and he’s bloody ruining me now while he’s dead. I wanted him to run my body into the ground. I wanted him to fall asleep holding me, forever, until he died, and then I wanted to set myself on fire to die with him.

He wasn’t supposed to go without me.

He was supposed to die kissing me.

When’s the last time we kissed?

_There is no carrying on after Simon Snow._

**SIMON**

Don’t come after me, Baz.

Not this time.

This time…

This time, Baz, just let me die.

**PENELOPE**

Simon can’t be _dead_.

He can’t. He…he just can’t. We’ve been through too much. The Humdrum, the Mage, _Baz_! He can’t have died. Not this way. Not without us by his side. If Simon Snow dies, it’s going to be at my hands, because I’m going to kill him for scaring us like this.

I glance over my shoulder at Baz, who is looking less like Baz and more like a ghost. Simon’s jacket hangs off him, swallowing him up. His eyes are red around the edges, but I don’t suspect it’s from lack of nutrition this time. (They do that sometimes, when he hasn't fed in a while. Makes him look a bit like a drunkard.)

I turn back around. I can feel the spell wearing off, but I doubt Basil will run. He doesn’t seem like he’s got it in him to breathe, much less run back home.

Simon will be okay. He will be. Whoever took him just figured out how to get his wings off. That’s it. Something we haven’t been able to do since he grew them out of his back…

He’s okay. He’s gotta be. Otherwise, what’s the point?

**SIMON**

I have to tell him. I have to tell him not to come. He can’t come. They’ll…they’ll take him.

They’ll set him alight the second he comes anywhere close. (I can feel their thoughts; I can practically taste the flames they want to use on him.) (Fucking hell, this is weird.)

I have to...

To tell him…

**BAZ**

Bunce won’t give up. No matter how many dead ends we meet. Despite every sign in the bloody universe telling us that Simon is gone, she won’t give up.

No wonder she and Simon get on like a vampire on fire. She’s as fucking obstinate as he is.

As he was, I mean.

The thought hits me like a punch to the gut, brutal and without warning. I feel like I'm going to burst into flame.

I wish Simon had just run me through with a stake. Would have hurt less. At least then, I’d be able to say goodbye to him.

Did he know that I love him? Did he know that, in his last moments? (The thought that he didn't burns somewhere in my chest, right under my heart. But for some reason, I can't stop wondering.)

As Simon Snow laid dying, did he think of me? Did he picture me and my face and smile that stupid toothy grin of his? (It's stupid. And toothy. And makes his face go all soft. I love it.) (Should I change that to past tense?) (Is that what Simon is now? Past tense?) Did he want to tell me he loved me? Did he think of that lifetime ago when he was kissing me on the floor of my family’s house, devouring me like a hungry wolf?

I have to sit down.

“Penny,” I say. I can’t focus. Everything is going blurry. My brain is playing memories of Simon on repeat, and I can’t fucking stop it. “Penny, I have to sit down.”

He’s laughing with me in his flat. He’s dancing with me. He’s grinning as he’s pinning me down. He’s kissing me in a forest that’s burning all around us. His cross is swinging against his chest, a temptation and a barrier. His hair is flopping into his face, and I'm pushing it back, and he's kissing my hand before I can take it away.

Somewhere, Penny has a hand on my back, I think. She feels miles away. I think she tells me something, but I don’t hear it. I just hear Simon. Simon telling me he loves me. Simon questioning if I want Agatha. (A moronic question, even for him. _Do I want Agatha?_ Moronic. I've never wanted anyone but him.) Simon asking if he can kiss me.

“Bunce,” I manage to get out. “I can’t do this.”

Hot tears prick at my eyes, and I don’t do anything to stop them from falling. Why should I? Simon bloody Snow is _gone_ , and I’m wearing his jacket, and he’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I distantly wonder when his scent will fade. How many washes it’ll take before his jacket just smells like a jacket. No more Simon Snow.

I should just burn myself up. Burn myself up in this stupid _fucking_ jacket. Kill myself and the last bit of Simon Snow left in the world. I think of his wings again back in the flat and decide that Bunce can have those. I don’t want anything to do with the damned things. Just the jacket and me, please. That’ll be enough. The wings are just wings now.

I start to walk forward, the words _I’m sorry_ already on my lips. I feel the heat begin to spark on my fingers as my other hand holds my wand—I won’t make Penelope watch me go up in flames, I’ll spell her away, I’ll spell her far enough from me that I can explode all over—

But then I can’t do anything. I think, somewhere in my head, that Bunce has put another spell on me. But this doesn’t feel like Bunce’s magic. This feels thicker. Heavier. Magic steeped in molasses. The world has gone black, but it’s not from me shutting my eyes. My eyes are wide open, and I can’t see _shit_.

_Baz._

That’s a voice. But that’s not Bunce.

_Baz, you absolute wanker._

I think it again: _that’s not Bunce_.

_Baz, go back home. Please._

Simon? (I don't think anyone else would say my name like that. Like they constantly need to shape it in their mouth.) Maybe I say his name out loud, and maybe I don’t. I don’t know.

 _Baz, for me. Go…go home. Stop looking for me_.

“SIMON!” This time, I know I say it; I feel the word tear through my throat.

_I love you. Stop looking. I’m dead, Baz. Well, basically._

“What does that mean?” I say, frantic for more of him. _Keep talking, Snow_. I try to move forward, to see if he’s here in this darkness, but it’s like my feet are glued to the ground. “Simon Snow, _what_ does that mean?”

_It means to stop searching for me. You will not find good things, Baz. STOP._

“Simon, I will never stop searching for you,” I say. And I mean it. I thought he was dead before. I thought searching for him was futile.

Now that I've heard his voice again...now that I know he's out there somewhere, now that I've felt his presence swallowing me whole again...

Now, I'd like to see someone stop me.

“If you’re out there somewhere," I tell the air, "I will find you. I don’t care who I have to burn to do so.”

I think I hear a sigh.

_That’s why you need to stop._

And then he’s gone. Or whatever transmission of him is gone. The blackness warps back into a sidewalk and a very concerned Bunce aiming her ring at me.

“What the fuck was that?” she asks. I could hug her.

“Simon,” I say breathlessly. I feel something happening to my face; it takes me a few seconds to realize it’s a smile spreading across my cheeks. “Simon’s alive. And we’re going to find him.”

**PENELOPE**

Okay, so _alive_ may not have been the best term for Basil to use when describing the state of Simon. From the sounds of it, he’s…he’s…it’s like that scene in _Princess Bride_. Where the magic man says that Wesley is only mostly dead. Like that. Simon’s not _dead_ , per se, but he _is_ rather close.

“It sounds like he’s almost…in-between states,” I say. Working it over in my brain, it sounds impossible. But, then again, basically everything I’ve ever been through with Simon seemed impossible at the time (see: the Humdrum teleporting us, Simon growing wings the first time, Simon growing wings the _second_ time, etc.) so who’s to say he didn’t open a new dimension or state of being trying to rip his wings off? I wouldn’t put it past him.

But he doesn’t have his magic anymore. So that means…

“He went to someone.” Baz says it before I do.

I mean, it's the obvious conclusion: we couldn't magic his wings off, so he went to see if somebody else could. But it still makes me feel warm when Baz says it, like he knows the same Simon that I know. (If anyone knows Simon Snow like I do, it’s Baz. Vampire Baz, Simon’s vampire boyfriend.) (I remember when those words would have sent Simon grabbing for his sword. Or going off like a bomb. Times were simpler when Simon didn’t have access to all of his emotions.)

“Yeah. But…”

Baz stands, wrapping Simon’s coat around him tighter, and it hurts to see Simon’s colors on Basilton’s frame. Like looking at a skeleton wearing a dead man’s clothes. _He’s not dead_ , I remind myself. _Not dead, not dead, not dead._ “Who,” he asks, “would Snow have gone to see?”

“That’s the thing,” I reply. I pull out a miniature notebook that I keep stowed in my bag and receive a roll of the eyes from Baz. (“Shut up, Baz, I can hear your eyes hitting your brain.”) I leaf through the pages, searching for the one I need. “There’s no one who advertises that they can do stuff like taking magic wings off a non-magic boy. I would know; I searched my magic all up and down Europe and the Americas and every other place I could think.”

“I know, Bunce, I was there. That leaves us with nothing.”

“Not so fast.” (Ah-ha! Found it.) I show him the page in my notebook, the one that’s been sitting there since Simon first grew his wings and we knew we couldn’t get them off. I hadn’t even told Simon or Baz or Micah about it back then because I knew how bad it was. It would make me worse than the Mage, probably. (Fuck that. Nothing could make me worse than the Mage. Greedy fucking bastard.)

But even if it _did_ make me worse than the Mage (which it _doesn’t_ ), if it’ll lead us to Simon, I’ll do anything. And I think that Baz will too.

Baz’s eyes widen as he sucks in a tight breath. “Bunce. You don’t think…”

But we look at each other. And we do.

“Cool,” Baz says, looking completely the opposite. “Brilliant." He pulls both hands through his hair, and I watch his nails drag into his scalp, and I think he's about to burst. "Simon Snow decided he was so tired of his bloody wings that he went to a _forbidden witch’s lair_. Crowley. Kill me now.”

“Technically, it’s a forbidden _ghost_ witch’s lair," I say, which probably isn't as helpful as I think it is. "Which is probably why he was able to reach out to you in that weird black space. If I were to guess, I’d say they took Simon’s wings but made him pay a price. Something like his soul or his body or something.”

Baz looks at me like he wants to set me on fire. I halfway think he might. “And _how_ , pray tell, Penelope, are we supposed to rescue Snow if he’s missing a _soul_ or a _body_?”

I answer honestly. “I don’t know. But it’s Simon, Baz. Our Simon. We’ll find a way.”

Just saying his name softens Baz up. Simon Snow is Baz Pitch’s weakness. (Simon and fire, anyway.) A self-destructive used-to-be explosive who's still waiting to detonate. I’m not surprised their first kiss happened in the middle of a burning forest. (Simon told me all the details the second I drilled him about Baz. It was all very romantic and stupid.) Just like them to do something that daft in the name of love.

Just like us to do something as daft as going to a forbidden ghost witch’s lair in the name of Simon.

“It’s up to you,” I say. I know the answer to the question I’m going to ask, but I have to ask it anyway. I place a hand on Baz’s shoulder, and for once, he doesn’t shove it off. “Simon told you not to come. If you want—”

“I’m burning that witch and their whole damn lair to the ground,” Baz interrupts. “And then I’m going to kiss Snow until he can’t breathe, and then I’m going to burn _him_ to the ground for doing something this outrageously stupid.”

For the first time since Simon left a few days ago, I smile. “Then let’s go.”

**BAZ**

I am going to kill Simon. I have never felt so certain of this, not even when we were kids.

I’m going to kiss him to death. I’m going to kiss him and his face and his eyes and his chin and his cheeks and that mole on his shoulder and the dip in his stomach and the places in his back where wings used to be and—I am going to kiss him all over, and then I am going to light us both on fire to make sure that he dies how he’s supposed to. That he dies kissing me.

Get ready, Simon Snow. I’m coming for you.

**SIMON**

I told him to stay away. I _told him_ to stay away.

I can feel him coming. I can feel him not listening to me. I can feel him thinking he’ll take on the witch and bust out of here with me in tow.

He’s wrong.

**AGATHA**

The call from Penny is unexpected, and I almost don’t pick it up.

But I’m not a complete dick. And I’m not doing anything. So I do.

“What is it, Penny?”

She seems to take in a shaky breath before speaking, and it suddenly hits me that maybe this isn’t her normal I’m-Penny-And-I-Need-To-Tell-You-Everything-In-My-Life kind of phone call. (Memories of _that_ Christmas come flooding back to me, but I shove them down before they can root themselves in my mind. We think about that in therapy, nowhere else. That year, as far as my Normal brain thinks, was a fever dream with a Christmas day blackout.)

“Okay,” she finally says. “Simon got himself in some trouble. Baz and I are going to go save him, obviously. But if we don’t make it back—”

“Penny, is this dangerous enough that you could die?” I’m anxious now, and my stomach sinks. Of course this is about Simon. Of. Fucking. Course. I don't mean to sound rude but—maybe I do. Maybe I thought we were done with missions revolving around Simon and putting Penelope in danger. _Breathe in, breathe out._ “Penny, please, think for a second. Just think. Can’t Simon wriggle himself out of this?”

“He’s not an atom bomb anymore, Ag.” She says it like she’s trying to be gentle with me. Like I’ll break. I don’t like it. “He’s gotten himself into even worse trouble than with the Mage, and—”

I’m doing a lot of interrupting on this call. I almost think I feel bad about it. “How in the actual fuck did Simon manage to do _that_?”

Worse trouble than with the _Mage?_ Than with the man who tried to...who...who...

Christmas day blackout. Right.

Penny is silent for longer than I think necessary. “I can’t tell you. I just called to say that Baz and I are going after him. If you don’t hear from me in a week, call my mom. Tell her all you know, and then tell her to look in my notebook. She’ll figure it out.” She hesitates, then: “And tell her that I love her, too. And Dad. Please.”

“I will give you two days, Penny.” She starts speaking, but I’m not letting her negotiate this time. “ _Two days_ , Pen. That’s all you get. Figure it out in two days, or I’m flying to England and dragging you back myself. You can tell your parents that you love them when you make it back.”

“I can’t promise you two days.” She sounds tired. The kind that only Simon Snow can make you, that kind that stays on your skin until he’s back safe and where he belongs. It's the kind of tired that sticks to you like glue no matter how much rest you get. I lived in that feeling for years. I don’t relish hearing it attached to someone else.

“Two days, Penny,” I say. “Two days, or _I’m_ finding him.”

Then I hang up.

**BAZ**

If Simon’s alive, he’s done a bloody good job of hiding it.

My magic can’t sense him. None of the spells are working. Not **Come back, my love!** Not **Love is an open door!** (My wand arm does feel a bit colder, though.) Not **Not to me, not if it’s you** , although that one was a long shot anyway.

Bunce tries her fair share of spells too. **Come out, come out, wherever you are!** and **Friendship is magic** don’t do a bloody thing. Either the witch bitch (that's what I'm calling them—I think it's rather clever and also rather Simon) has hidden him away, or Simon is doing a damn good job of doing that himself. (The back of my head says, _Or he’s dead_. I imagine lighting the inside of my skull on fire, and the words erase.) Remembering his words to me in that black abyss, it’s highly likely to be a combination of both. He may not have magic, but that’s Simon Snow as an un-magicked human boy. Simon Snow as an almost dead ghost creature may have powers previously unrecognized.

“Maybe we should try some paranormal-based spells,” Bunce recommends, and I nod my head in agreement. I refresh our **Nothing to see here** and **Silent as a rock** (we want to find Simon, not have the witch bitch find us) and then spell out a **Scooby-Dooby Doo, where are you?** I hear what sounds like a tree falling and a howl that seems more human than wolf, but no Simon.

Bunce casts a **Paranormal activity** into the falling leaves around us, and I think that, if anything works, it’ll be that one.

It isn’t.

I let out a noise of frustration. “Penelope,” I say through gritted teeth, “are you sure we’re looking in the right place?”

“I’m sure, Baz.” She doesn’t pull out her notebook to check—left it back at the flat in case the witch decides to turn us into ghosts—but I can see her picking out the page in her mind, rereading the words I’m sure she must have read a thousand times before. Her face is easy to read, and right now, it's got _Simon_ and _notebook_ written all over it.

It hits me suddenly then. That I'm not looking at an expression that has to find the right way to lay on her skin. That this is a look Bunce has worn many, many times, so much so that the lines of her face all start to make a little more sense. Because Bunce was probably ready to do anything for Snow before this happened; she's _been_ ready to do anything for him and just hasn't been given the chance. While I was trying to love him and make him fall in love with himself just as much as I had, I'm pretty sure Bunce was looking into plans A, B, C, and Z. I’ve never had a friend love me like that. (Niall and Dev don’t count. Their love is different. I don’t know how. But it’s not like this.) It stings in the back of my throat, but I pretend that it doesn’t.

“Then why can’t we find him?” I ask. I can't tell her that I've just waxed poetic about her face's devotion to my boyfriend, so I focus on Simon instead. And I think about how I want to burn these woods to the ground in order to find him faster. I want to set everything alight until all that’s left is me, Bunce, and Snow. And then I want to grab Snow and kiss him and die in flames. To hell with being flammable.

“Well, he _did_ go to a witch ghost, Basil. That’s bound to make it a little difficult.”

“How does a witch ghost even _exist_?” I run a hand through my hair and remember a time when I’d never have let Penelope or Simon see me without looking like perfection. It feels like another life. Like I’ve stepped through a portal into another dimension where Bunce is my friend and Simon loves me back. (If I’m requesting dimensions, I’d like to be in the one where Simon is okay with his wings. Or maybe one where he didn’t need the wings at all. One where Simon likes himself would be fucking spectacular.)

“I’m not really sure,” Penelope answers. “According to the legends, they’ve been around for a long, long time. I would imagine that they tried to come back when the Veil was down or something and then just…got stuck. Maybe got magicked into staying here? At this point, I’m up to believe anything.”

The only thing I have to say to that is: “Why is everything with Simon Snow a fucking magical affair? He’s not got it anymore!” To which Penelope provides me no answer. Crowley.

**SIMON**

Stop coming, Baz.

Stop it. _Please_. I’m begging you.

They’ll kill you. They’ll…they’ll…

They’ll take you out, Baz. They’ll take you out, and they’ll make me watch. Please, Baz.

Please…

**BAZ**

It isn’t until I wake up that I realize that I slept at all.

Bunce is leaned on my shoulder, mouth hanging open like she’s trying to catch bugs with it. Her glasses are askew, looking just a breeze away from falling off her face. She’s so close that the smell of her hair hits my nostrils—the last remaining remnants of something meant to emulate flowers. If I were anyone else, it would cover up the scent of Simon.

But I still smell him underneath everything. Underneath the Bunce-ness and the outside-ness of the air.

I stand, doing my best to avoid waking Bunce. Her head lolls into the spot where my shoulder sat, and then she turns the other way, pulling further into herself like she’s going to block out the chill of the air by tucking her knees into her stomach. It makes me think of Simon, and I look away before it breaks me. I contemplate shrugging off Simon’s coat and placing it over her, but I take another whiff of the air and—there he is. Still here. He’ll need a coat when I find him. (Maybe not. Maybe I’ll light us up the second I see him. No need for a coat if you’ve got a fire keeping you warm from the inside out.) (I keep the coat on, just in case.)

 _Simon Snow, I’m coming for you_.

I start forward, following the trail his scent leaves on the air. I must have been absolutely tossed last night to not smell this before. There’s so much of him in the air; it’s impossible to move a step without breathing some of him in. (He smells like home and cinnamon and something new that I can't figure out right now.) When did we fall asleep? What were we doing?

 _Ghost hunting_ , my mind provides. _We were ghost hunting, and we spelled ourselves silent and invisible a hundred times over, and then I wanted to continue but Bunce wanted us to take a rest, and—_

And Bunce spelled me asleep. Because if it were up to me, I’d have covered the whole forest before morning. I’d have searched every inch of these woods before the dryads even really knew I’d been here. (They would have known. Obviously. But I’m making a point.) So she spelled me asleep and moved us to a spot she considered a swell enough place to lie down. Probably cast some spell that lifted my body up behind her and made it look like I was hovering over the ground.

I’m almost annoyed, but then I smell more Simon, and the feeling passes.

As I’m weaving my way through trees and fallen leaves towards the smell of him, the nerves begin to make themselves known in my stomach. _It’s Simon_ , I try to remind myself, but it feels off. Because it’s not just Simon; it’s Simon without wings. It’s Simon who left on a lie—Simon who said he was making a grocery run and never returned. (Bloody prick didn’t even take a list, and I didn’t consider this _odd_. Simon, who told me about his Things He Misses About Watford list. Simon, who makes lists for things that don’t even need lists. And he didn’t have one with him when he said he was going on a grocery run. Brilliant observational skills, Pitch.) It’s Simon who left on a lie and had me convinced he’d died and swam through forms to tell me not to follow him.

Finding him suddenly doesn’t feel like such a good idea. His scent is closer now, but it’s starting to smell…different. Simon rung through a dumpster. Simon doused in stagnant sewage water. My fangs pop out without me telling them to, and it’s only through some kind of magic ( _ha!_ ) that I don’t puncture my own lips with them. _Snow is okay, Snow is okay, Snow is okay_ —

And then I find my way into a clearing.

Some part of me is coherent enough to think: _Simon Snow is not fucking okay_. But then everything jumbles together, and I can’t think much of anything.

Because there he is. Dead on the grass.

I run to him. I don’t know how I manage it—I don’t even feel my legs move. One second, I’m staring down at him from the trees; the next, he’s there in front of me, looking almost as if he’s sleeping.

But Simon’s never slept so gently. I’ve shared a room with him for longer than I haven’t, and the way he sleeps has been imprinted in my mind since the start. Simon sleeps like he’s aching for a fight; he sleeps like he’s waiting to be called to action. This—this is Simon when there’s nothing left in him standing at attention.

I thought I’d seen Simon with nothing left; I thought that was Simon after the Humdrum. Simon without his magic. But this is different. This is Simon without _life_. This is a body wearing Simon’s face. This is a dragon that’s been slain.

 _My_ dragon that’s been slain. My beautiful wingless damned dragon. _He was supposed to die on fire—supposed to die kissing me—supposed to die being loved_. He wasn’t supposed to die like this. Without me by his side. Without me holding him.

“Simon Snow,” I whisper to the corpse that can’t hear me, “there is no carrying on without you.”

It hurts. Looking at him like this. It feels like there’s a cigarette being burned into my chest, only it’s multiplied by the thousands. It’s worse than anything I’ve ever felt or will feel again in this life because _fuck_ , how can anything feel worse than losing Snow? How can anything even _compare_?

 _Simon Snow, there is no carrying on without you_.

Somewhere, I think that I’m wailing.

**PENELOPE**

It isn’t the sun that wakes me; it’s the horrible weeping.

The screaming like someone’s been murdered. The keening like something’s gone.

In those first few seconds after I wake up, I know that Simon is dead.

 _No_ , my mind says instantly, spitting out the thought like bad leftovers. _No. No, no, no. Simon Snow is not dead_.

But that sound…that’s Baz, I think. And Baz wouldn’t be making a noise like that if he hadn’t come across a not-breathing Simon. That’s the noise of a heart breaking in two. That’s the sound I’d imagine I’d make if Micah were to appear in front of me, dead.

I’ve made it to a dip in the trees before I even realize that I’m moving. The noise is closer now, a lot closer, and it is most assuredly Baz; there’s no mistaking it now, not even if I’d wanted to.

I lean over and look into the clearing below.

I throw up.

**BAZ**

I’m never going to hear him laugh again. Never going to see him smile. Never going to kiss the target on the side of his neck again. Never going to brush my hand over his and grin stupidly when he crushes our fingers together.

The mole above his left eye grabs my attention. _Crowley_. I never kissed it enough. I never kissed _him_ enough—but I don’t think any amount of kisses would have been enough to satisfy me. That’s my heaven: kissing Simon Snow for all eternity. But I don’t get an eternity. This was as close as I was getting. Simon in my arms, Simon in my life, Simon bloody Snow in my bed.

And now he’s gone.

**PENELOPE**

Baz is weeping.

I’m sobbing.

Simon is dead, and we were too late to stop it.

My ring hand trembles as much as my voice, but I manage to cast out a shaky **Come out, come out, wherever you are!** into the air. I hope it finds something. I hope it finds the witch—because I’m going to kill them for this.

**BAZ**

I think Penny is here somewhere, trying to spell the beast out—and I can feel my magic thrumming inside of me, building up, begging me to do the same. For a second, I think that I’ve taken from Snow: that I’m about to go off. But I was never capable of that. And I’m just being emotional.

Simon Snow is dead.

The love of my life is gone.

Crowley. Alastair. _Fuck_.

**SIMON**

I made a mistake.

I made a mistake coming here. Asking for my wings off. Demanding a cure from an occupied tomb.

I made a mistake leaving Penny and Baz.

I hope they can forgive me.

I don’t forgive me.

**BAZ**

Penny is hollering out spells behind me. She’s casting all sorts of things, and I swear I hear a few forbidden words echoing out around us. But it doesn’t matter. Even if we find the thing that did this—even if we drag it out and spell it seven ways to hell and back—Simon is still gone. I think of Ebb that Christmas, cold and bleeding on the floor, and of the Mage clutching onto Simon like he’d dissolve into kindling if he didn’t.

There’s no blood here. Just an emptiness that I can feel in my gut, and Simon’s golden skin sticky with a pale gray sheen. He looks more vampire than I do.

His tail is still there, lying limp between his thighs. (It's never been that still. He's _dead dead dead._ ) But there’s no wings spread out behind him. No flaps folded underneath his form. I do something I didn’t think I could—I reach out and turn him over, and his skin is so damn _cold_ , colder than I ever thought he could get—and come face to back with the places where they used to be. Instead of wings, there’s deep dark gashes, boiling red wounds that look like they took more out of Simon than what he put in. (I think about spitting out healing magic, but healing magic doesn't work on the dead; there's nothing for it to take hold on.)

“Hey,” I breathe instead, “he got them out.” I think I’m speaking louder when I say, “Penny, he got them out!” Why I’m shouting this, I don’t know. We knew they were out when the package arrived on Bunce's doorstep. (White box, black ribbon—absolutely lovely.) It’s different seeing him without the wings. Like everything’s only now coming together.

“For Merlin’s _sake_ , Baz,” I hear coming from somewhere, “help me spell this _thing_ out!” But I can’t. I don’t care anymore. Let it take me out. _Take me too,_ I want to say. _We’re a package deal, a matched set; you need to take me too. You don’t get to leave me here without him after everything we’ve been through. That’s—that’s not allowed. That’s not a-_ fucking- _llowed._

And then, bizarrely, desperately, unbelievably, I see a shiver run through Simon’s muscles.

This isn’t right. I’m delusional. Losing Snow has made me go utterly mad.

But then—there it is again. The body starts to move, but that—that can’t be right. I’ve lost it, I think. The grief has made its way to my brain and turned it into mush. I pop my fangs out and bite my lip, just to be sure that I’m not imagining things, like the pinch that Normals give themselves to make sure they aren’t dreaming.

But the body moves again. _Simon_ moves again.

“Snow,” I half-choke/half-breathe out, and then I’m on him like a rabid dog, pulling at his shoulders like I’m trying to hoist him onto mine and run him out of here. “Simon, love, _Snow_.”

He’s against my chest now (Crowley, he’s got more muscle weight on him than I remember—or maybe this is just what reanimated corpses feel like), and he makes a noise against me, but it’s not anything that I recognize, and I don’t care. I don’t care at all because _Simon is alive._ I’m still pulling at him, shoving him up onto his knees, begging him to look into my eyes.

And then I see it. The pale white instead of gleaming blue. The golden pupils instead of steady black. And it’s like he dies again, in my arms this time, and some part of me is able to think instead of stare in shock— _this isn’t Simon_.

I grab his face in my hands, pulling and pleading, but it isn’t him. This is something else. This is some _one_ else.

I try to scramble away, but Not-Simon snatches my wrists into his fingers. He doesn’t even feel like Simon; he’s still so _cold_. Colder than me, even. Much too cold to be Snow, who is all warmth and embers and sun.

“What are you?” I scream, still pushing into the grass with my feet. I’m moving the dirt but not much else. Not-Simon has a grip on me tighter than I’ve ever felt. I’m worried that my bones will fuse together under the touch—that my wrists will buckle into the dead space under his finger pads.

“ _I am the one your boy chose to seek_ ,” a voice says out of Simon’s mouth, like Simon’s but several octaves too deep. “ _He paid a price, vampire—and now, so shall you_.”

 _This is it_ , my body sings at me. _This is how I die._

This is how I’m going to die. Killed by something inside Simon’s body. Maybe I’d take him up on his therapy offer, if I lived through this. There’s no way for me to pretend that this isn’t leaving a dent in my banged-up psyche. This is every vision I've ever had of Simon killing me rolled up into one and spelled to hit me worse. But I won’t have to worry about it. Not once Not-Simon kills me.

I wish I could have kissed him again. One more time. One more endless time, and I’d never let him go. I’d never let him separate to breathe.

While I’m busy contemplating alternate realities and lives I wish I could have lived with Simon (our own cottage, a lovely little life, _children_ ), Not-Simon’s hold on my wrists lessens. Either that, or it tightens so far that I’m left feeling less, which is a plus, honestly. (It’s lessened. He’s let my wrists go, probably so he can find some other part of my body to crush into oblivion.)

Crowley. I’ll never get to have a life with Simon bloody Snow. The ex-Chosen One. The Mage’s bastard child. The golden boy.

It’s fitting, this is. I’m dying at his hands, like I always knew I would. I always said that it was going to end with one of us killing the other. I’m almost proud that I’m right.

I give in, then. _I’m done_ , I think at Not-Simon. His hair flops into his face, and I do what I always do without thinking—I push it back. Not-Simon looks at me, and for an instant, I think that I see my Simon’s blue eyes come back. Then I blink, and it’s gone.

Not-Simon has his hands on my throat before I can react. I’m not even sure I would have reacted, given the time; I’m not sure I’d even want to.

There’s a keening sound on the wind, and I think that it’s coming from Bunce.

I’m about to die. No half-death like when I was bitten; real, permanent death. The pressure on my neck feels just like the pressure on my wrists, and I think that my windpipe will burst before any other part of me does. Not-Simon is staring down at me, and I know he wants nothing more than to pop my head off like a grape. He’s twisted up the look that Simon gives me when he wants to devour me whole. Turned my Simon’s face into something wicked. (Simon’s face could never be. Wicked, that is. Only beautiful and extraordinary and brilliant when he’s in control.)

“You’ll have to burn me to do me in,” I choke out as best as I can, doing what I think is my best impression of a smile.

Not-Simon grins in return. (A mangled grin, twisting Simon’s lips up like he wants to split open his face.) Then, for a second, I feel the hands on my neck heat up.

And then they sputter out.

They sputter _out_.

My mind is doing mental hurdles for longer than I wish to admit when it hits me: the ghost used to be a mage like me. _The ghost used to be a mage like me! A bloody flamethrower mage!_

But Simon has no magic left. He’s an empty tube, and no amount of squeezing is going to push anything out.

I can see all this playing out on Not-Simon’s face too. He glances between my face and Simon’s hands, like staring at them sharply enough will suddenly fill them back up with magic. _Not how it works, you twat_ , I think. Snakes alive, I’ve never used that word in my life; I’ve been corrupted.

“He doesn’t have magic,” I force out. And then, just because I can: “You twat.”

And there it is again, that pop of blue back in his eyes. His expression changes with it: suddenly I’m two years younger and in a different forest and Simon is using that big brain of his to figure out how to turn off my fire and reaching the conclusion that kissing me should do the trick.

I almost do it—kiss him, that is, to see if his solution works in the opposite direction—when Bunce sends us all tumbling into the leaves.

**PENELOPE**

I don’t know how I know it. It just hits me: the creature is here. I’ve sent out spell after spell after spell, each one more magicked and panicked than the last—and nothing has happened. At least, not physically.

But something is here. It’s not that I think my magic would have called something by now; it’s that I _know_ it did.

There’s something around me. Something pressing into me, singing into my pores. I hear a voice on the wind, but it’s so garbled and I’m too upset to make it out. But it soothes me. The wound in my chest, the hole that sank into it when I came upon Baz leaning over Simon’s body this morning, is closing.

I can feel it; I can feel _Simon._

I look down and see Baz trying to raise a breathing Simon off the grass.

He’s not in that body.

Baz is pulling at it, moving Simon’s face into his chest. And then Baz stares into its eyes, and I can tell from here that they’re not my Simon’s.

 _So your plan_ , I think to the air around me, _was to get your wings taken off and then offer yourself as a vessel to the ghost_. I can almost feel Simon shrug against my back. _Great Nicks, Simon, what a stupid idea._

But what a Simon thing to do. Get what he wants and then waste it on a chance at easing someone else’s pain. No more wings, but also no more body, because he figured that someone else needed it more.

“Simon,” and this time, I say it aloud, “I loved your wings.” The words catch at my teeth, clotted off by sobs. I push them through. “I loved them, and Baz loved them, and we loved you. We loved them because they were _part_ of you.”

I feel sorrow on the wind, but it’s not mine; this is someone else’s sorrow. This is sorrow set free into the air.

I straighten. And then I run and slam Baz and un-Simon into the ground.

**BAZ**

By the time my breath catches up with me, Penelope has her ring hand inside Not-Simon’s mouth. Or, at least, that’s what it looks like when I first see it. But upon closer inspection as I continue to suck in the air that I was missing while Not-Simon was crushing my windpipe, I realize she’s not got her entire ring _hand_ in Not-Simon’s mouth; she’s just got her ring _finger_ inside of it, and it’s not even inside of it really, more right in front like she’s trying to get a direct line into the center of Not-Simon.

And she’s doing all kinds of spells. The first one I’m able to really understand is **I banish thee!** The next one she screams is a tight **Sod off!** And then I catch a **This isn’t your home!** that I didn’t think held a whole lot of weight anymore, shortly followed by a **What an excellent day for an exorcism!**

By Crowley, it seems to be working.

I look into Not-Simon’s face—my Simon’s bright golden curls glistening against his now deathly pale, pale skin—and no one could convince me that his eyes don’t flash his brilliant blue every other time he blinks.

My wand is in my hand before I feel I’ve even slipped it out, and then I’m shooting spells at Not-Simon too. I shout out, “ **Come back, my love!** ” and “ **Return to me, my lover!** ” I even start booming out poetry magic with **Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes!** and **We expect you!**

Penelope is singing out spells to take the ghost out of Simon’s body, and I’m thundering out ones to pull Simon back in. If it were any other time, I’d commend our unspoken teamwork, but I’m too busy watching as the color slowly begins to pink back up on Simon’s skin to focus much on anything else.

_Alive, alive, alive. Come on, Simon, be alive._

Now, the blue sparking back into his eyes seems to linger some more, like it’s trying to stick around. _My Simon is in there_. I can see his eyebrows furrowing; I can see his canines baring into a snarl; I can see his gaze searching, raking over every inch of space in front of him frantically until it comes to rest on me.

The blue holds steady. But I can see the struggle in him. I can see the white starting to bleed back into his irises around the edges. He’s not going to last—at least, not long enough. Not long enough to take up residence back in his body.

The idea plays at my mind again, the method he used to save me but in reverse, and I rise up, still singing all the spells I know at Simon’s body. If this doesn’t work, I don’t know what will.

“Penny,” I say loudly to be heard over her spells, “I’m going to kiss him.”

“What?” she shrieks, pausing with her magic, and I say that I’m sorry when I pull her out of the way. I throw her back as gently as I can, but I have to keep her far enough back that she’s not able to stop me, so I'm not sure she doesn't get slammed into a tree. I’ll apologize more when I’m done. When I’ve gotten Simon back.

When I’m done kissing him back to life.

 _A kiss for a kiss_ , I think. _We’re even._ Not that I ever really cared about being even. “You saved me this way,” I whisper to blue eyes mixing with bright white. “Let me return the favor, love.”

**SIMON**

I’m so close. I’ve got in—I’m shoving it out. Well, not quite—it’s more that Penny and Baz are _pulling_ it out, sucking out the ghost with their magic, and I’m filling up the hole it leaves behind. (God. _Holes_. I’ve done enough filling of magical holes for a lifetime. Maybe two.) But that doesn’t feel right either. I push in further, and it feels like I’m being dragged back into myself by a rope. I reach for it, holding on as tightly as I can. Then I hear the spells, and it just makes me try harder. Because while Penny is spelling the ghost out of me, Baz is spelling me _in_. He’s yanking me back into myself.

I’m creeping back into my body. I’m pushing against the ghost as Baz continues to try to spell me back inside, but even as he’s shooting magic into me, I can tell it’s not going to be enough to keep me there forever. The ghost isn’t completely leaving, and he’s going to run out of energy or spells or something soon. Penny is too.

 _You were the biggest mistake of my fucking life_ , I think at the ghost crowding me. _Really and truly, mistake number one. Fuck off_.

(When I had first come upon the ghost, I thought it would be nice to do it a favor for getting my wings off. That it had been trapped without a body for too long, and that I could repay its kindness with a kindness of my own: give it some time in a body so it could pass on. Or whatever. Then it tore my fucking wings out of my back and refused to let me back into my skin, so. Not my brightest moment.)

I push some more, and I can feel myself getting closer, but still not enough. But I manage to find control of my vision, and I search for what I’ve searched for every time I’ve opened my eyes since starting at Watford.

Baz. Baz finding and holding my gaze. Baz moving towards me looking like a fucking _dream_. (I’m not dreaming. This isn’t a dream. It hurts too much for that.) Baz with his hair looking uncharacteristically messy in the rays of sun sprinkling through the trees.

And then he’s in front of me, and he’s stopped with the spells. For a moment, I panic. _Why have you stopped, Baz, why have you stopped?_ Then I see his face, and I hear him say he’s returning the favor, and I know exactly what he’s going to do. Even I can figure out that he’s referring to a forest and a fire and a kiss. I wonder if this is how he felt before I kissed him: like it was the very thing that was going to save him.

I pitch my lips up to meet his.

**BAZ**

Kissing Simon to life is like kissing the sun to warm it back up. Like pushing warmth back into a furnace that had it sucked out. It feels like he’s drawing in my heat, and I don’t try to fight it. The second he’s fully back, I can feel it. He sucks in a breath, a breath that’s all me and my tears and the magic still hanging all around us, and then he reaches a hand around the back of my neck and holds me there against his body and his lips like he’s never going to let me go.

 _Good_ , I think, pushing back against him and wrapping my hands into his hair as tightly as I think I can without hurting him. _I’m never letting you go either_.

Too soon, his hand leaves my neck, and I let out an involuntary whimper right before both of his hands find my arse and pull me up so I can wrap myself around him. I ensnare him with my legs, pushing my knees into his sides and directing his mouth deeper into mine by his hair. _Never letting you go again_.

We sit there like that for what can’t possibly be long enough, me curled around him trying to take him into my lungs, him holding on and trying to swallow me up, when I absently hear Penny say, “Baz, get the _fuck_ off of him.” Before I can even respond, she’s shoving me away, and I’m growling low in my throat, hungry for more and more of Simon.

Simon looks about to protest, but then Penelope’s launching herself into his arms and sobbing into his neck, and it comes to my attention that I’m not the only person here who loves Simon more than anyone has ever loved anything.

(Granted, there is no way she loves him more than I do. But I’ll give her a close second.)

“You fucking wanker,” I hear her cry into him. “You absolute arsehole. How dare you. How _dare_ you. You—”

“I know, Pen,” Simon whispers back, arms circling Penny and holding her there against him so tightly I’m afraid he’s going to leave bruises. His voice is so gruff, like he hasn’t used it in a while—or like someone else was abusing it. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Don’t you _ever_ do anything like that again, Snow,” I chip in halfway sourly, and his eyes find mine, and I see something in them that’s almost enough to make me turn away.

I don’t turn away.

“I thought we’d established that you were calling me ‘Simon.’” He says it like he’s joking, but his eyes—Crowley. I’ve never seen them this intense of a blue. (They’ve always been some version of intense, though, because they’ve always been _his_.)

“I think I’ll just call you ‘stupid git’ from now on, honestly, after this whole selling your body to ghosts debacle.” I flash him a grin to try and mask the fear I know is still seeping out of me, but the regret in his eyes shows me that he clearly still hears it.

“Not my best decision,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t look away. A hand is stroking Penny’s hair, and the other moves from her back to open a spot for me to cling to his side. I take the offer without another word, and then it’s just us, bundled into each other, Penelope in his lap tucked into his right side, me with my arms wrapped tight around his waist and curled into his left, and we stay like that until the intermingled scents of Penny and Simon have drowned me.

**SIMON**

I’m back.

Merlin’s ghost, I’m _back_ , and I’m holding Baz and Penny, and I’m going to keep holding them until someone makes me stop.

I’m _back_.

**BAZ**

It isn’t until what feels like hours has passed that we all realize that Simon’s naked.

“Simon,” I say when I finally register the lack of pants as he stands and the closeness I am to said _lack of pants_ , “we need to find you some clothes before I rip you apart.” In the aftermath of getting Simon back, I had forgotten about the coat, and I start to shrug it off when I realize that there’s not much left to shrug. It’s been practically disintegrated. (Poetry magic be damned.)

“You will not be doing any of that while I’m around,” Penelope retorts, brushing leaves off her skirt with one hand while holding one of Simon’s with the other. I’m quick to reply, “Then you’re going to want to cover your eyes and ears, Bunce,” and Simon’s laugh almost sends me pouncing for him right then.

“Before we do anything else,” he says, cocking his head so I can see the moles scattered on his neck (and inevitably so I can kiss them, of course, because I’m not letting any opportunity go to waste anymore), “I’m starved.”

“Penny,” I say around Simon’s throat, “go get us some food, please. We’ll be waiting here when you return.”

She half-heartedly agrees, namely because I’m actively refusing to stop kissing various inches of Simon’s now warm and pinked-up skin, but she’s smiling as she goes, so I don’t feel too bad.

As soon as she’s an (almost) acceptable distance away, I slam my lips onto Simon’s, and he’s waiting there for me, moving against me and pulling at my clothes like he’s going to rip them off. He’s shoving me, trying to move me back against a tree, but I turn the tables and shift us so _he’s_ the one with his back flat with a tree (I think, absently, about the new wings we’ve magicked to heal up his back and about if they’re hurting with him pressed up like this, but I’d never magic something onto Simon that would hurt him, so I let the thought go), and I’m pushing my tongue as deep in his mouth as it can go.

I can’t get enough of him. I want to swallow him up. I want to devour him whole, keep him safe inside of me where no one can hurt him, where no one can _touch him_ but me.

“Don’t _ever_ ,” I mutter weakly against his lips, “do something like this again.”

“Never again,” he moans back. The sound sends me over the edge. “Never, never, never again.”

“Good,” I get out, and then all we really say for the next hour is a chorus of “I love you” and “ _Simon_ ” and “ _Baz."_

**AGATHA**

Baz hangs off Simon’s arm, standing close enough that his face gets swallowed up by Simon’s hair when the latter moves forward. The image of them makes me a little woozy, if I'm honest, like I'm remembering something I tried to forget.

I used to look like a charm bracelet up against Simon: an accessory easily removed but appreciated for its beauty. Looking at them, though, that’s not what Baz is. Baz is...different. He's like an extension that Simon wears on his wrist. A piece that makes him whole. Baz is the reason I can see Simon’s eyes sparkling in the midday sun before they’ve even made it across the lawn.

Baz isn’t an ornament; he’s a planet orbiting a sun that only shines on him.

I almost laugh. And to think that Baz and Simon used to be at each other’s throat. _God_. Idiots.

Penelope appears behind them, almost like I willed her there. And when her face finds mine and she smiles, I smile back and feel something inside of me start to break. She’s safe. _They’re safe_. A weight leaves my lungs, and I take in the first deep breath I’ve been able to manage since Penelope’s original phone call, and then I take another to convince myself that I can. _They’re safe. Holy Morgana, they’re safe_.

“Simon,” I say when they’re within earshot, “if you ever do something that foolish ever again, I am going to murder you.”

“You’ll have to get in line,” Baz says at the same time that Penelope replies, “Not before I do!”

Simon grins and nestles into Baz’s side, copper and gold hair moving in front of his face. Baz, looking like it’s what he was made to do (and doing a far superior job than I've ever done), pushes the tufts back and plants a kiss to Simon’s temple. “I promise that if I ever want to do something that stupid again, I’ll run it by all of you first.”

“And then we will tell you ‘Hey, Simon, that’s a dumb idea’ and you won’t freaking do it,” Penelope says. “No matter how much you want to.”

“No matter how much I want to,” Simon seconds.

Baz asks the question I’m thinking, which is, “When did you get so agreeable?”

“When I found out that having wings is easier than being magicked back into my body.” The small wings sticking out of his back really drive the point home, I think. No more hiding them. (At least, not from us, and not whenever he gets a chance to have them out.)

“That’ll do it,” I say.

Simon’s smile doesn’t leave him the whole afternoon. At one point, I rest my hand on his thigh, and he turns to me wearing the brightest grin I’ve ever seen. _Jesus Christ. He’s so damn happy._ Maybe getting his wings yanked out did it for him. Opened up a part of him he'd closed off. I know that leaving Watford and magic did that for me, so I...well, I can't really fault him if losing those big red wings helped him out. I shift my gaze towards Penny and Baz, and they're eyeing Simon like a treat. Like he's something they're not supposed to see.

Maybe it was just them. Just knowing that he had people who loved him, wings or not. I grip him tighter. “You know we love you, Simon,” I say quietly, trying to force all the weight I can into the words. I need him to know that I mean it. That I care about him. That Baz and Penelope care about him, too. “We love you so much. I need you to understand that.”

His face softens. “I know, Agatha. Now.” He rests his free hand on the one I have on his thigh. (The other is, of course, trapped firmly in Baz’s grip.) “I just forget sometimes. That’s all.”

 _Keep seeing your therapist. Don’t leave like that again. Promise me that you’ll come to us before you go to fucking ghost witches._ “Call me if you forget again. I’ll make sure you remember.”

My eyes catch Baz’s looking back at us. The corner of his mouth turns up, and his eyes seem to be a much lighter shade of dark. His gaze switches from me to Simon, and any harsh lines in his face instantly melt away.

 _Planet and sun_ , I think.

**SIMON**

My wings are back.

They’re not like before. Not big and dragon-y and red. These are smaller, but they’re enough to fill in the holes in my back left by my old wings (and enough to remind me never to go to forbidden ghost witches ever again.)

Penny and Baz had to do _something_ to fix my back. It looked like hunks of skin and muscle had been ripped out (according to them—I have no way of knowing; it’s not like the witch ghost had fucking _mirrors_ on hand so that I could see what they'd done to me. _Thanks, but this is a lot messier than I intended. Do you charge for repairs?_ ), and while we were all cuddled up together on the forest floor after Baz kissed me back into my body, they magicked up some replacements to, well, _replace_.

“I’m sorry they’re more wings,” Baz had said afterwards, sadness all over his face. I felt a pang in me at having been the one to have put it there. (I’m never going to put it there again. Never again.) “But we had to heal you up, Simon.” They’d quietly tried all sorts of healing spells during that time. But none of them would stick until Baz spelled out more poetry magic. (I don’t know how he does it. Expel so much fucking powerful poetry magic from his lips. I was feeling an emotion then that I don’t know the name of, but I couldn’t stop looking at him.) **With feathers, like a lady bright** and **His velvet wing** had been the ones that clung to my skin, and then it was like the healing spells had something to hold onto, and I felt it in my back as the cuts in my skin started to close up.

I wasn’t even mad about it. Oddly.

“It’s fine,” I’d said, meaning it. “Really, it’s alright.”

And now we’re here, with me looking into the bathroom mirror at my newly healed back and my new set of wings. These ones are feathered like an owl’s and take up about the space between my shoulders and hips when folded down against me. My original tail is still there, and even though it no longer matches the wings, I like the combination just fine.

“Come on, love,” Baz says behind me before wrapping his arms around my waist. A kiss lands on the back of my neck, and I can feel the new wings trying to unfurl in excitement. (Apparently, whenever Baz is near, they want to spread out. I’ve been looking a lot like a bird in flight.) Baz chuckles into my skin, and I think about how I’m never fucking leaving him again. Never ever. Not once more. “Bunce is expecting us.”

My wings are back. And everything is fine.

We’re carrying on.

**Author's Note:**

> i am american, please don't come for me if they don't sound super english, i tried my best. i love them a lot and i put them through pain but hey i made it end happy so it's OKAY. hope you enjoyed.


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